A section of it now serves as a field boundary to the west, reinforced with recent stone facing, and two cattle gaps have been cut through the bank at the northwest and southwest. This is not neglect so much as continuity; Irish farmers have been adapting prehistoric enclosures to their own purposes for centuries, and what results is a layered object, neither purely ancient nor purely modern.

A ringfort, or rath, is an enclosed farmstead of the early medieval period, typically dating from roughly the fifth to the twelfth century. They were built by individual farming families as a combination of homestead and livestock enclosure, the surrounding bank and its accompanying fosse, an external ditch, providing both a physical barrier and a marker of status. The example at Knockaunalour is roughly circular in plan, measuring approximately 46 metres north to south and 54.7 metres east to west. Its earthen bank survives to a maximum height of 1.2 metres, eroded but still legible as a boundary. The fosse is clearest to the north, where it reaches 0.6 metres in depth, with fainter traces remaining to the west. The interior slopes gently southward, and the ground drops away sharply just beyond the outer bank, a feature that would have made the southern and western approaches naturally defensible without additional construction. The view from inside the enclosure extends broadly to the south and southwest, a reminder that whoever chose this location was thinking carefully about both surveillance and terrain.